Maybe, Utena
by J. Random Lurker
Summary: The shadow of a former self walks through the halls of Ohtori and remembers. Is the Revolution the end, or a new beginning?


"Maybe, Utena"  
an Utena fanfic   
by J. Random Lurker  
  
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Author's note: This story is dedicated to the past.   
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This time, I'll return in silence, in a whisper, like a ghost.   
Oujisama, keep me strong. I know I'll be tempted. I know I'll want to   
show my true face, especially to Touga and Miki... to all of them, my   
friends.   
  
Please, give me the strength to do what's right for them. Whatever that   
turns out to be.   
  
Life goes on.   
  
The surest way to humble yourself is to look back on what you left   
behind. When your friends and family realize you're gone and there's   
not going to be a hope of your return, they get on with their lives.   
Finding new meaning and hope in different things, other things. You   
don't exist in their world any more.   
  
Before, I walked through these halls and girls were lining the streets   
three deep, crushed all along my path hoping for a chance to see me,   
get an embarrassed smile or a wave.   
  
Now those favors are reserved for someone else, someone who once stood  
in the shadow I cast and hungered secretly to slash my throat, to   
take back the chance to be special that I had stolen. Wakaba... now   
that you're the special one, are you happy? They adore you, and your   
face shines like the sun; you're the blessed one now. I'm not surprised   
when I get near enough one day to see the rose signet on your finger,   
a star of burnished silver. I'm not surprised to see a girl who was in  
my lifetime a jeering nobody now clinging to your arm, with the   
unmistakable look of passive adoration that marks the taint of the Rose   
Bride. Hell, I can almost smell the roses from all the way over here.   
  
I'm not sure if I'm jealous or not; it's a strange feeling to look at   
you now, like walking on my own grave. It makes me sad, but I'm also  
happy; it means you'll get out of here someday. You have the right kind   
of heart; you're probably a great Victor.   
  
The first week or so, I sit close to you at lunch and breaks, listening   
in, trying to guess where you are in the game, what's happened. For   
each of those five days, I bask in your smile and remember what it was   
like back in the days before I knew the real meaning of the game. You   
never notice me at all.   
  
Ohtori is an easy place to disappear in. In the wake of the special ones  
trails a cone of silence that you can slip into very easily. If you're  
not Seitokai or a favored one you live in a weird sort of limbo.   
It's actually incredibly freeing, and I take full advantage of it.   
There's power in anonymity, here; more power than anyone realizes. I   
see now why Akio stayed in the shadows, content to be the figure that   
emerges from rare time to time, mostly invisible and unnoticed. In this   
position, you can listen to anything, get close to anyone, and they-   
those beautiful brilliant ones- they never notice you. How can they?   
They're blinded by the spotlights shining on them all the time, blinded   
by each other, reflecting each other's glow like moons around a   
glistening star.   
  
I never knew how it felt to be marginal. I was never marginal in anything.   
I had my enemies and my allies, and my admirers; a court, almost. My life  
and my death and my rebirth were all fantastic, superhuman things. I was  
blinded by the stage lights, too.   
  
Being like this is a lot better than I thought it might be, back then.   
I have no friends now, and no enemies. I am no one... I simply am another  
piece of set-dressing. And here, I can do so much more good.   
When the girl in the dorm room down the hall starts to weep one evening,   
and starts to put the razor to her wrist, I'm there. I can do something   
about it. Free of the restraint of holding up a public appearance, free   
of the clots of admirers, I can be there in her room, wipe away her tears   
and hold her, and save her life. I can be the Prince I only pretended to   
be while I was playing his role on stage.   
  
And when I put her to bed and step away, I know she'll be definitely   
better in the morning. That's assurance I never had as the Victor, either.   
  
----  
  
I'm not sure what the best move is. I spend the next couple of weeks   
trying to figure that out. I don't want to interfere with the Game,   
but my unimportance gives me some unique chances, and my memories urge  
me in certain directions. I fit myself into the fencing club, into   
the music club, into drama and dance. I want to be close to the   
Seitokai again, but I want to retain my independence as well.   
  
That means that just so often I'll turn my wrist the wrong way and let   
Juri-sempai's perfect forward lunge knock my fencing saber out of my   
hand when our feet are squeaking across the wooden floor of the training  
hall. Sometimes I don't even have to do it consciously. She's gotten   
so much better over time... she's so restless, I can see it in her eyes.  
Even with Shiori snuggling her head against Juri's shoulder after the   
last class drains out of the hall, Juri still isn't satisfied.   
  
I'll play the wrong notes or pick the wrong key on purpose while in   
music club, watching Miki tutor his star pupil Tsuwabuki.   
Tsuwabuki-chan's shaping up into a fine man; he'll soon be ready for   
the stage, tutored at Nanami's hands and now tempered in Miki's. I   
imagine Akio is slobbering at the idea of using him, making him into   
another Duellist. Miki.. hasn't changed a lot, which I guess doesn't   
surprise me. But sometimes I see a rage waiting there. If I can play   
the wrong note at the right time, I see a flash of it, like ball   
lightning in those dark blue eyes. His politeness is starting to crack.   
  
In Touga and Saionji I sense a ragged, constant tension. I see that   
each has two kinds of smiles. The smiles that they give to others are  
political and pleasant. The smiles they give each other as they drive   
their boken into each other's chests in their duels are full of sin   
and pain. I see their eyes tighten when the girls scream their names   
or crowd around them. They never get a break, not for a moment. In   
the kendo hall Nanami serves tea in her flower kimono. Her hands   
sculpt ikebana, plucking single leaves with a fanatic devotion to   
detail as she kneels, so politely, at the feet of her brother. Her   
eyes are always turned low. She rarely speaks above a whisper.   
  
I wonder if these are the true faces of the people I fought back then.  
How did I manage not to see this before? Were they really like this   
the whole time? Angry and mourning and frustrated and /miserable/?   
Their sadness tears holes in my heart. They are bearing their pain   
with as much nobility as they can, and it's still not enough to save   
them.   
  
If this is what my revolution did to them, I swear I'll never leave   
this place again until all of them are free.   
  
----  
  
So one night, I can't sleep. My heart's been restless ever since I   
got here. I have a lot of trouble sleeping, and when I do sleep my   
dreams aren't good.   
  
I usually end up sleeping a few hours, then getting up and moving   
around. It started just in the dorm room, quietly, so as to not   
wake up my roommate, a girl as plain and forgettable as me. We   
haven't exchanged more than twenty sentences so far. After having   
a rose bride and a huge empty hall to myself, it took me a little   
while to adapt. Anyway, I've gotten good at slipping into my clothes  
silently, and tiptoeing out the door.   
  
Once I'm outside it's so much easier. The air is cool and clean,   
and I can smell the sea in the distance. All of it faintly wound   
up with roses and freshly cut grass... Ohtori's smells aren't unique   
by themselves, but the blending of sea salt and sugar roses and   
dark pine from the south makes it distinctive. I get lumps in my   
throat if I think about it too hard. The smell blows cool through   
the dark archways and open spaces, and I walk around circling my   
arms, looking at the stars.   
  
Every now and then in my walk, I'll see a couple furtively pressed   
together against the shadow of an archway. It's not often, but   
sometimes. I go by the covered swimming pool and breathe in the   
chlorine. Sometimes I'll run around the track once, hoping to make   
myself tired enough to want to sleep. Sometimes I can look up to   
the tower and see a light in the student council chamber. I'll tell  
you a secret: I've slept out here more than once. The nights aren't  
cold at all, and as long as you don't roll around, the bleachers  
are comfortable enough. Ohtori's a different place at night. Quiet  
and serene, like I always imagined it would be like inside the   
Illusionary Castle. If such a place had ever existed.   
  
Tonight I'm tired when I start my walk, so I make my way pretty much  
straight to the bleachers. I like the third one from the top. It's   
smooth, wooden and indented just a little, which makes it comfortable  
to lie in; sort of captures the heat from your body. Apparently,   
though, I'm not the first person there this evening. Someone else   
is there, sitting quietly, legs drawn up tightly together, sitting   
on the fifth row from the bottom.   
  
As I get closer, I see it's Shiori.   
  
Oh, no. She must have had a fight with Juri-sempai or something. I   
admit to a moment of hesitation before I walk over. Look, don't get   
me wrong. I don't really dislike her or anything; I barely knew her   
then, and I don't even have the flimsiest excuse to talk to her now.   
And I'm not sure I'm in good shape this evening to be the smooth   
Prince. I'm tired and I can feel the puffiness under my eyes, that's all.   
  
She startles when I approach, and I can't blame her. It must look   
like I just beamed in from another planet or something- the lighting's  
not great out here. There's enough to see by, but it's hard to   
see anyone coming until they're on you. I apologize for that, and   
then take up my usual seat, stretching out along that third row.   
She watches me and neither of us say a word for a while. A slight   
breeze stirs a few cicadas to sing in the field.   
  
The bleacher creaks as she leans on a hand, sideways to look at me.   
She smiles, then asks me in that soft lilting voice of hers if I   
do this sort of thing often. Sleeping on a bench. I admit that I   
do, because I often have trouble sleeping, that I find it comforting  
to fall asleep under the stars.   
  
"You must be a very lonely person." she tells me. There's no trace   
of anything mean in her voice. "Lonely people look to the stars for   
comfort."   
  
I think about that, and realize I don't have anything to say that   
could contradict that. I know that oujisama is always with me,   
always around me, and always within me... but... it's not the same  
as what she means. I know that, too.   
  
She goes on, with her kind small face and her lilting voice, to tell   
me that tonight she and Juri-sempai made sugar cookies. Hers burned   
a little, they didn't come out perfectly like Juri's did. She was so  
afraid Juri wouldn't like hers- that she couldn't compete because   
Juri's cookies were so elegant- that she trembled when she pulled the  
tray out of the oven. But Juri told her that she liked the flawed   
cookies better, because they showed the honesty of their making. And   
after they were frosted, you couldn't tell the difference anyway.   
Juri ate her cookies just as happily as if they had come out perfectly.  
  
She reaches around to her other side, and holds out a plastic-wrapped   
cookie to me, frosted orange. "I came out here to thank God for   
Juri-sempai's love." she tells me, brushing her eyes again with her   
free hand and fighting back tears I can tell are of real happiness.   
"I hope you can make cookies with someone you love someday." she says,   
and gives me the cookie. Then she stands up and brushes off her skirt,  
and walks down off the bleacher, into the field, into the night. Just  
like that.   
  
And here I was thinking I needed to cheer /her/ up.   
  
Somewhere, in the back of my mind, I can feel a square tea cookie   
coated in sugar crystals grasped in my fingers, and the sweet taste   
of the crystals dissolving on my tongue. Someone to make cookies   
with, huh?   
  
I close my eyes, wondering if I somehow read Juri wrong before.   
  
----  
  
Saionji comes to me out of the blue, in a way I never suspected. I   
should have figured he would be the first to notice me, if anyone   
would. One day he stalks up to me while I'm quietly eating lunch on   
the lawn. He scowls at me, grimly grabs my arm. He demands to know   
who I am, why I'm always lingering around the Seitokai so closely.   
He's looking at my bare hands. I watch his eyes as he does it. I   
see frustrated desperation in them. Clutching at me, as if clutching   
at hope, his next question throws me for a loop. He asks me why I'm   
deliberately failing in everything.   
  
I'm so shocked by it I can't react. I guess I was getting sloppy in   
my invisibility. While I'm dazed and openmouthed he roughly drags me   
off toward the greenhouse, away from the other students. His grip is   
almost crushing, I have to bite back a cry. Then I feel the concrete   
of an archway crashing against my back, and his hands to either side   
of my head, his hips pressing mine.   
  
Frightening isn't a good enough word. I have to bite back the urge to  
scream or kick him in the jewels to get him off me. I would, but I   
can't- his eyes... his eyes are the eyes of someone in utter hell; they  
hold me still and silent. I wonder if this is the same face he showed   
to Himemiya. That time she and I switched bodies, things ended up a   
little like this, but then he wasn't nearly so crazy. Time's made it   
worse.   
  
He's shaking me, but his voice is low and dark. My head rebounds off   
the wall behind me, not enough to really hurt, but it gets my attention  
sure enough. He demands that I answer him. He demands to know why I   
always come just short of achieving what I'm obviously capable of. Why   
I let Juri knock my foil away and why I play those bad notes sometimes.  
Seems he's been watching me too. He says that there was only one other   
person who so blatantly failed at everything, so obviously.   
  
I gasp because he's right, and now I know what he's so upset about.   
  
He thinks I'm Himemiya.  
  
Well, great, now what do I do? I can't tell him the truth. Inside, I'm   
panicking, just freaking out. I didn't figure on any of them noticing   
me. I was so sure I was acting in a way that was just normal, just flawed   
enough, just like everyone else...   
  
He saves me the trouble of coming up with some brilliant answer when he   
pushes his mouth over mine and kisses me. It's hard and angry, flavored   
with sour unhappiness. His hands wind hard into my hair, to hold me in   
place. I push him off, a burst of strength channeling through my arms. I  
shove him so hard he falls off balance and lands on his butt in front of   
my feet, his long legs all tangled up.   
  
The taste of his tongue, iron-mean, is still in my mouth as I gasp for   
breath and collect myself. He sits there blinking up stupidly at me a   
moment, and then he starts to laugh. I don't know why he's doing it, at   
first, until I realize that I've stuck my hand out to him. Then I start   
laughing too.   
  
From on the ground he says to me, and I'll never forget this, "Only you,   
Tenjou, would knock someone down to protect yourself, then hold out a   
hand to help them back up again."   
  
He takes my hand, and I pull him to his feet. He brushes himself off.   
Then he takes me to the Seitokai platform, and he makes me tell him   
everything. He asks me if I've seen Himemiya, if I know where she is,   
if she's well. I tell him the truth- I don't know. But I hope she is.   
  
I asked him how he possibly guessed it was me. He crosses his arms over   
his chest and says, with a turn of his head and this sigh that seems to   
come out of his soul, "Anthy would not have pushed me away." It's so   
/him/ that I find myself blinking back tears.   
  
We talk for a long, long time.   
  
----  
  
But, Touga... Touga. It takes me many weeks before I can work up the   
courage to deal with him. Time has only increased his beauty, and his   
popularity has not waned at all. When I do make my move, it's easy   
enough to turn it from a day to a week to a month to a dinner to an evening...   
  
He's asleep, but I'm not. I can feel his breath washing against the   
back of my neck while we lie under the warm sheets. I don't want to move.  
I can barely breathe.   
  
I'd wondered about it for a long time, back then. What it would be like   
to fall completely into his arms, shed my clothes, let him into me. Back  
then, I couldn't afford to do it. Now, I finally know what it's like.  
  
It's horrible.   
  
He was gracious and gentle and attentive, his hands were deft and delicate,  
and his kisses were just the way I wanted. It felt great. Yet... it was  
utterly horrible. It wasn't beautiful. It wasn't even powerful and   
overwhelming, like it'd been with Akio...   
  
It was just cold and empty. Mechanical. Spiritless bodies hollowly,   
mindlessly fucking. So horribly hollow I wanted to scream.   
  
I wish it'd been better, but how do you compete with yourself? It was   
never harder than in that moment... the moment I saw the misery in his   
eyes. The moment I saw that he wasn't seeing me. Not my body, this one   
I'm wearing now, the one that he took to bed like he takes all the other  
girls, one more page in the calendar book that's frantically filled so  
that he never has a moment to himself, never enough time to think- no.  
In his eyes, in his soul, while his hands were roaming my body he was   
seeing /Utena/. Yearning, aching, helplessly searching for me.. her...  
in a strange girl's face. And never finding me.   
  
I hope he can't hear me crying.   
  
I slide out of bed, away from the warmth of his chest and his light   
strong arms. He moans, whispering my old name into the darkness. I grab  
my clothing with shaking fingers and get out of there as fast as I can.   
  
I don't go near him again. He keeps himself too busy to notice.   
  
----  
  
That whole mess with Touga upsets everything. Without his support, I   
don't know if I can do this. Saionji's still backing me up, though. He  
keeps my secret, though I'm not entirely sure why he does. We meet every   
so often, in different places at scattered times. We talk about where   
things are going. We plot. I'm not gonna say we get along perfectly because  
we don't, sometimes. Still, there's something we both want that we try   
to put our differences aside for. We're going to change Ohtori.   
  
I once thought that Ohtori Gakuen was evil. I think I needed to think that,  
in the days immediately after my destruction. It gave me purpose, and a   
reason to hold on, something to live for- just to spite Ohtori's will.   
For a long time the million swords had control of my heart, and I'm sorry   
to say that I let it happen. At that time, I didn't care. The game was over;  
I'd failed in everything I'd set out to do. Even if it was hatred, even   
though hate seemed to be all I could feel, it was a real feeling so I clung  
to it with all my strength.   
  
I'd like to say that something romantic happened, a miracle. Some divine   
manifestation of the Prince that gathered me up and healed me and took me   
in his arms and made it all better. I'd like very much to say that, I wish  
it had happened that way, but that wasn't the case. God doesn't work like  
that. It's sort of a tough-love thing- if you won't fight for your life,   
you must not really want it. That's true in any world you can name.   
  
The hatred lasted me for a while, but then I had to let it go. I couldn't   
really sustain it. The day I realized that is when my second life began. I   
don't think Ohtori is evil any more. I'm a little stronger than that now. I  
think that it's undirected. Its power is blind, born from blind people who  
don't know what they're really doing. I think it's seductive, and it makes  
it so easy to forget yourself, forget the truth and become blind. It offers  
the illusion of power and the comforting lie that the more you devote your  
love and life to the illusion, the better a place the illusion becomes, the  
more -real- it is. Until reality itself looks like the rotten deal. Then   
all those hopes and dreams turn into gears in the machine. And the castle   
gets bigger and Ohtori gets more and more complicated.   
  
If only I could find a way to free all the trapped dreamers here.   
It's just.. that I'm not sure of my course any more. Is that dream itself   
a trap?   
  
----  
  
One night I have a dream of my own. I see all of us standing in a dark room  
full of stained glass windows around a box of fire, our swords in our hands.  
We take our swords and all as one, tilt them up over the rim of the box,   
letting them fall into the fire. The swords melt in the flame, and it becomes  
golden, the fire burning more beautifully and brightly than any of us could  
bear to look at. We take each other's hands, staring in awe at this thing we  
made, congratulating ourselves on our achievement.   
  
Then we suddenly see Akio, with his sword crusted in blood, tinted ash-black.  
He staggers out of the shadows, looking terrible. His clothes hang from his  
body. I can see his cheekbones standing out under the limp loose strands of  
his hair. He looks as though he's been slowly wasting away. His smile is   
skeletal, the kind of smile a rabid wild animal wears.   
  
He stops short of us, and seems to be begging for permission to come close   
to the fire.   
  
We grant it, more out of fear than genuine welcome. He shambles forward and  
tips his own sword into the flame. It turns from white to soot-black, and   
we all gasp with fear. Our hands come apart. Touga and Juri start to curse   
him, and I can feel the words coming to my lips too. Somehow, though, I look  
down at the heart of the fire, and in it I suddenly see clearly that our   
perfect light was going to go out anyway. There was a fatal flaw in it, a gap  
we couldn't see, something that would have collapsed the flame from within   
even without his presence.   
  
He looks at me, eyes searing desert suns, redrimmed as if from crying endlessly.  
I can't look away even though I want to. "How dare you come back." he curses   
me in his low rasping voice. "Hypocrite." He fairly spits the words at me.   
"I hate you. I need you to be gone. Don't you understand why?"  
  
He rushes forward, upends the black fire, throws it at me, "If I destroy you,  
it'll end ..." and I begin to burn, I throw my hands up to try and protect   
myself but the fire is burning and I'm burning and my skin is beginning to peel  
and my blood is boiling and I hear him screaming through the crackling "You're  
/DEAD/! STAY DEAD! WE CAN'T GET OUT AS LONG AS YOU'RE HERE!" - screaming in rage and weeping for his soul...   
  
I wake up on the bleacher, cold tears pouring down my face.  
  
The next time I talk to Saionji, I mention the dream. And he mentions that   
he hadn't thought about Anthy in years, not for years, until he began to notice  
me.   
  
----  
  
I think about that a lot. Harder than I've thought about anything in this   
whole life. Do I really want to do this? Do I really hate Ohtori that much?   
Do I really want to tear apart Juri from Shiori, do I really want to break   
Touga's heart again?   
  
If I'm honest with myself, the answer is no. I can't bring more pain. They're  
finding their peace where they can, bearing their suffering as best they can.   
  
The next time Saionji wants to meet with me, I make some excuse, and say I   
can't. After that first time, he just nods sadly once, and never asks me again.  
He doesn't talk to me again after that. We drift apart. It hurts, a little,  
because we were almost becoming friends. I thought... I've never lost a friend  
like that before. It was always me who walked away.   
  
Maybe he knows what I'm thinking. He's more perceptive than I ever imagined   
someone like him could be.   
  
Maybe the one who truly needs to escape Ohtori is me. Miraculously I've been   
given a second life after death, a chance to cast away my sadness and pain,   
my suffering and my illusions. I thought I could come back, the noble prince   
on his white steed, and make it all better for everyone. I automatically assumed  
they would be worse off than they were when I left. I thought they were sad   
and bitter and unsatisfied...   
  
Maybe I was wrong. Maybe those were really my feelings.   
  
Maybe Juri's really happy, and maybe Touga will forget me if I stop haunting   
him. Maybe Saionji can let go of Anthy if I'm not around to bring her back to   
his memory. Maybe all I'm really doing here is reopening wounds that deserve   
to be healed and closed. I should trust my friends enough to let them live   
their lives in their own ways.   
  
I prayed when I came here for the strength to do the right thing. Now I think   
I know what that thing is. I did need to come back here, this one time. I don't  
think that was a mistake. Otherwise... I might have locked myself here forever.   
  
I don't have any bags to pack. I wouldn't want them anyway. As I walk across   
the field against the flow of the other students walking to class, I turn and  
look over my shoulder. The sun shines down over the tower, filling the field  
with light. The soft smell of this place, a sweet scent I'll never forget,   
fills my nostrils. The summer air curls down the hill, out of the gate, flowing  
toward the sea.   
  
I take a bite out of an orange frosted sugar cookie. The sugar dissolves in   
my mouth, crumbling against my tongue. The taste makes me smile. I'm going   
to make cookies like these with a certain someone, when we meet again.   
  
Until then... it's just good to be alive.   
  
----  
  
jrandomlurker(at)yahoo.com  



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